


The Thin End

by anactoria



Series: New Year 2013 Fic(let)s [6]
Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, M/M, Original Character Death(s), Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-01
Updated: 2013-06-01
Packaged: 2017-12-13 16:10:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/826207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anactoria/pseuds/anactoria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>By the time Q finds him, Bond has finished all the whiskey.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Thin End

**Author's Note:**

> NY 2013 ficlet for she_recs, who gave me the prompt, "By the time Q finds him, Bond has finished all the whiskey...." Unbetaed; please feel free to prod me if you notice any mistakes!

By the time Q finds him, Bond has finished all the whiskey. It’s not even the good stuff—a litre bottle of Jameson’s, bought as a Christmas present by an uncle to whom Q is the boring nephew with a nondescript IT job in some obscure department of the civil service, no discernible hobbies, and no hope of ever getting a boyfriend, and therefore someone for whom the only viable gift options are generic aftershave and generic booze. Q wouldn’t say that being the forgettable one is the way he likes it, exactly, but—well, what’s the alternative? _Actually, Uncle Rob, I spend my days designing the security software that prevents our centres of government from getting blown to smithereens, and in the evenings I sometimes have desperation- and misery-fuelled sex with an unstable secret agent whose job requires him to sleep with beautiful, dangerous women who seem inevitably to get killed two days later. So maybe next year you could get me a nice laptop case or someth—no, on second thoughts, let’s just stick with the cheap spirits._

Right now, though, Q has bigger problems to worry about than Christmas presents. Chief among them is that the unstable secret agent in question is currently sitting on the fire-escape above Q’s flat, having recently necked the last of the cheap spirits straight from the bottle, and staring out across the city as the sky fades from washed-out, orange-stained black to washed-out, orange-stained grey. It’s the thin end of the night, the part after the real deep trenches of four and five AM, but before daylight makes everything cold and solid and present again. You know reality is coming; you just don’t have to face it yet. 

It’s the space they exist in, him and Bond. It’s the only time they can be a _they_.

And it’s fading, fast. Bond’s eyes are on the skyline, watching the dawn come in, and Q knows instinctively that if he doesn’t make contact soon the moment will vanish, and it might be months until they get another one. So he takes in the empty bottle and the empty gaze, and makes the only observation he can:

“You had to kill her,” he says. “Didn’t you?”

The subsequent silence is long enough that Q wonders whether he’s missed his mark; whether the world hasn’t come up with some new species of tragedy for Bond to shrug off in public and bring home to drown. (And that’s what it is, drowning—with both hands and blank determination in his eyes, until he’s wrung the last stray pockets of compassion out of himself, until he can leave again with a wry smile and a little more of absence in his presence.) 

Then:

“Him,” says Bond, toneless. “And yes.”

 _Him_. It shouldn’t matter, and so Q ignores the twisting in his stomach and the small, selfish question in his brain ( _so what will you see when you look at_ me _?_ ) and says, “Well, that doesn’t mean you have to make me stand out here freezing my arse off in a cardigan, does it?”

Bond shrugs. “Wear a coat.” 

But he lets Q take the bottle and then his hand, and sways back from the railing as he gets to his feet.

“Bed,” Q says, in his firm voice, the one he can call on without a second thought day-to-day and that makes him feel like a schoolkid playing at being teacher when it really counts. Bond doesn’t argue, though, so he’s either too drunk to even make an attempt at sparring or—more likely—his mind is already on what’s going to happen next. They’ll go to bed, and they’ll fuck, and there won’t be any tenderness or any pretence of romance, and Bond won’t have to do his impression of a hero, and he’ll go to sleep without saying ‘good night’ and in the morning he’ll do a better impression of okay.

And it can only happen now. At the thin end of the night.

Bond walks back into the corridor steadily, brushing a little too close in a manner that Q will never be quite sure is deliberate. Outside, the rumble of traffic is gradually starting up; the last few pissheads stumbling home; the first few birds beginning to sing. The city is beginning to wake up. Reality. It’s probably better than this, really. Healthier, at least. Saner.

Q shuts the door on it.


End file.
